Learning to Be a Man

Work

Okay, so maybe I’m not the greatest erotic short story author, definitely not the most prolific, but maybe someone will buy one of my stories. It will probably just be my mom, you know, being supportive. It’ll be sooooo awkward when she reads about heaving bosoms and bulging bulges.

In my life, I’ve written one book. (You can find it on Amazon for $5.99. Helluva deal! Wink, wink.) Pretty much no one read it. I don’t blame them. It’s not the most amazing piece of fiction. It’s pretentious and uninformed. I started it when I was twenty-two. It was an assignment in a creative writing class. As a young writer, everything you write is precious. Actually, that never changes. Everything is still precious to me, but now I know when to keep things to myself and when to share them. I thought my short story would change the world if it just got in front of the right eyes.

As the semester moved on, I added more chapters. After I graduated, I added more chapters. Then I joined the Peace Corps. I was in living in a village in Benin, West Africa when I wrote the last few chapters. If you read the book, you can see me grow and mature. When I was twenty-two, I hadn’t really lived. I’d faced some hardships, but I was a white man living in America, I was born with privilege. Read more

It’s now May and that marks the start of my fifth month without a job. To put that in perspective, I got my first job when I was 11 as a paperboy. Since then, I’ve only been unemployed one other time. It was for three months in 2009, one of the worst times in America to find a job. I worked through undergrad. I worked through grad school. I’ve always worked.

Now, I’m not completely without work. I do consulting. But it’s not a job. I don’t go into an office or lock myself to my desk for eight hours. I set up calls; I offer advice; I take care of what needs to be done for the client; then I invoice them. I’m not hurting like many Americans who’ve lost their jobs. As you read this, know that I know I’m still a little son of a bitch. Read more

I'm a writer in Los Angeles. I'm in my mid-thirties and I'm still trying to figure out what it means to be a man. Come here to watch me fuck it up.
You can read some of my writing at The Way I Remember It. If you're looking for a digital agency check out my company Something Creative. And last, but not least, if you're a dog owner and want some of the most amazing dog sh*t bags, check out my company Biz Bagz.